We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
From a bunch of articulate Dylan-appreciators at NR. "Following our trip through the music of The Beatles, we decide to tackle an artist who is just as important and influential, but with a discography roughly four times as long. What could go wrong? In this part one of three, we tackle Dylan’s career from Bob Dylan (1961) through John Wesley Harding (1967), one of the most prolific and successful periods of any artist in history."
On ageing, from 1997. It is gloomy, sad, but Bob is still on his Endless Tour today. "Steel" has two syllables if you didn't know about Dylanesque lyrical phrasing. Without an operatic voice, you have to handle genius phrasing.
Songs like this make me hope that, when the end times come, some of our culture will be preserved somehow. Likely not.
One of Bob's songs about his conversion to Christ. Not sure what religion he is on board with now, but this was a song with powerful, mythic lyrics.
Now the nature of man Is to beg and to steal I'd do it myself, It's not so unreal The call of the wild's Forever at my door Want me to fly like an eagle while Being chained to the floor...
My lad claims Clothes Line Rag was a parody of Ode to Billy Joe. That is astute. Lay Down Your Weary Tune is a lovely hymn. Listen to that cover. How many masterpieces has Dylan produced?
Bonus below: Lou Reed covering Foot of Pride. It's about pride and Jesus. Pride is the greatest sin, is it not? The foot of pride will getcha sooner or later and, once it comes down, your life is screwed without proper repentence and rebirth.
People often think the title is "The Road Less Traveled." Nope. Not a poem about how special we want to feel. Some of Frost's poems became so popular that they became cliches. The cranky SOB was a skilled marketer of his image, too. Anyway, I posted this poem today to note the ambiguity here: "the passing there had worn them really about the same." A random choice for a grassy path. Fate. Hard to know what metaphysical poets are really up to: What Gives Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” Its Power?
The poem isn’t a salute to can-do individualism; it’s a commentary on the self-deception we practice when constructing the story of our own lives. “The Road Not Taken” may be, as the critic Frank Lentricchia memorably put it, “the best example in all of American poetry of a wolf in sheep’s clothing.” But we could go further: It may be the best example in all of American culture of a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
In this it strongly resembles its creator...
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim Because it was grassy and wanted wear, Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.
Walkin' down the line. This 1962 ditty has been covered by many, including by Arlo Guthrie at Woodstock. I don't know why anybody covers it. It's a simple piece.
Here's Bob with the Dead. Pickin' Jerry adds a lot of bounce to it, but I think Bob is drunk and gets the lyrics all screwed up. He's not perfect. Correct Lyrics here.
Jerry had such a laid-back taste with guitar, and his "singing" too. I love Jerry's relaxed picking.
Not one more night, not one more kiss, Not this time babe, no more of this, Takes too much skill, takes too much will, It's too revealing.
You came, you saw, just like the law You married young, just like your ma, You tried and tried, you made me slide You left me reelin' with this feelin'.
How often do you hear people say "I never lost 8 of the pounds I put on with my first kid" ? Clearly women do not need to be menopausal or post-menopausal to gain weight. Just look around at all the fat American women.
I think it matters in life to stay trim and strong, whether pre- or post-menopausal. You can be more athletic, agile, energetic, sexy, cheerful, and able to avoid many of the physical consequences of being overweight from plantar fasciitis and arthritis to breast cancer.
Plus it makes life more fun and you can wear better clothes. Except for those blessed with the right genes (physical and psychological), most people have to take deliberate responsibility for their level of fitness and, in the modern world of sedentary ease and carb abundance, it can be a challenge if you have an impulsive rather than obsessive-compulsive personality.
Is getting fat partly a socio-cultural phenomenon? Of course, but that's a more complicated subject than I wish to take on on Mother's Day. What about the middle-aged men making themselves pudgy? That's another sad topic too, but I believe that it is part of the duty of a wife to keep her man fit for life even if she "lets herself go". An obvious risk in that, though...
Post-menopausal women do have a greater chance of gaining weight even if they have been fit and shapely beforehand. It should not be used as an excuse, but the changes in sex hormones do alter fat storage and, seemingly, metabolic rate. Why nature designed it that way is a mystery, but nature has little need for post-menopausal females. Society needs them, but Mother Nature does not.
Generally speaking, post-menopausal women need far fewer carbs and less food in general than in youth almost entirely regardless of activity level. Another change is that the physical distribution of fat (from excess carb intake) changes in unhealthy and unattractive ways (unattractive in our culture, anyway).
He bought the house at 94 MacDougal St in the West Village but celeb-sniffers got the best of him. He was young, didn't realize that he was as famous as he was, a "prophet for a generation." He loved NYC the most but fled to privacy in Malibu and promptly set about proving that he wasn't any prophet. Then his wife dumped him and he crashed.
We know he still skulks around the Village alone and anonymously in a hoodie, when he's on tour in the area. Few people recognize the strange old little guy ducking into music joints and pubs. I would.
Manhattan Contrarian informs me that the interior of Dylan's old block contains a large private garden. Must be nice in there.
I think Bob takes his painting seriously. If he did not, I do not think he would agree to exhibit it.He seems to be a skilled amateur whose name lends weight to his artistic efforts, same as it does with Churchill's (or George Bush's for that matter).
Seems like he paints more from photos or from his imagination that plein air, but how could he? Well, I guess he could at his place in Scotland.
Now the nature of man Is to beg and to steal I'd do it myself It's not so unreal The call of the wild is Forever at my door Want me to fly like an eagle while Being chained to the floor, but
You changed my life Came along in a time of strife In hunger and need You made my heart bleed You changed my life
We are nearing the end of Lent, and I am reminded that I have reflected in the past about the idea that a function of life is to teach us enough humility to bring us to God - while our self-love fights to hold onto our precious fantasies of specialness, extraordinary integrity, appealingness, brilliance, and self-sufficiency despite the world's giving us abundant evidence to the contrary. Everybody's foot of pride comes down sometime, and often more than once. It can be brutal, but I guess we need it. Still, we must push forward as best we can and if we can do it with Christ as companion, so much the better.
This is a mystifying, rambling song which might sort-of be about a funeral, sins of pride and grandiosity, and man's Fall. Like a voice crying in the wilderness thing. Thus the contradictions of this half- crazy genius. It begins:
Like the lion tears the flesh off of a man So can a woman who passes herself off as a male They sang “Danny Boy” at his funeral and the Lord’s Prayer Preacher talking ’bout Christ betrayed It’s like the earth just opened and swallowed him up He reached too high, was thrown back to the ground You know what they say about bein’ nice to the right people on the way up Sooner or later you gonna meet them comin’ down...
He was never satisfied with any production of the song. That above with the lyrics which err: I believe it is "sordid" love affair with Errol Flynn, not "sword" , but who knows? Full lyrics here.The guy can pack more words into a line than anybody - or make fewer words fill a line completely.
For what it's worth, Lou Reed took a stab at the song:
“I don’t look past right now,” he said. “Now there’s this fame business. I know it’s going to go away. It has to. This so-called mass fame comes from people who get caught up in a thing for a while and buy the records. Then they stop. And when they stop, I won’t be famous anymore.”
We became aware that a young waitress was standing by diffidently. Dylan turned to her, and she asked him for his autograph. He signed his name with gusto, and signed again when she asked if he would give her an autograph for a friend. “I’m sorry to have interrupted your dinner,” she said, smiling. “But I’m really not.”
Some crackin', breakin' sounds in this recent song, Scarlet Town. Edgy lyrics here. A poor audience recording below but the heating flame adds something hellish. Ominous banjo like in High Water. I don't think Bob has made a recording of it, but maybe.
Dylan mainly on piano these days - arthritis it is said. Sucks to grow old in some ways.
Dylan isn’t really a poet. He’s a troubadour. Do even his most ardent admirers—among whom I count myself—spend much time reading his work? I think not. For the most part, his words cough and stumble across the page, though they scald and soar in song. Combining his lyrics with music produces an alchemic reaction in which the two elements strengthen and transform each other. Dylan has rightly won every prize in the book as a songwriter, but his songs are not literature...
Yes, they can scald and soar when he sings them. I mainly refer to his lyrics to avoid getting a mondegreen in my head. I had one with Jokerman when I thought it was "with a small dark look in his face." That was pretty good, but Dylan's was better: "...with a small dog licking his face."
I guess it was yesterday. 
How often do you hear people say "I never lost 8 of the pounds I put on with my first kid" ? Clearly women do not need to be menopausal or post-menopausal to gain weight. Just look around at all the fat American women.
I think Bob
Not Farewell Angelina, just plain Angelina. It begins